Elizabeth Goldring, a senior fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies and colleagues began work on a "seeing machine," she smiles as she shows a visitor photos she's taken and can see with her blind eye.

The demonstration comes more than 20 years after Goldring, a senior fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and colleagues began work on a "seeing machine" that can allow some people who are blind or visually challenged to access the Internet, view the face of a friend and much more. The team has moved from Goldring's inspiration, a large diagnostic device costing some $100,000, to a $4,000 desktop version, to the current seeing machine, which is portable and inexpensive.

By Vasil Sidorov on March 3, 2009 after MIT's Center for Advanced Visual StudiesReport